Meet Dakota Hurley  

Dakota Hurley was born in Johnson City, TN and has always had a passion for music. Growing up in church Dakota starting singing and developing an ear for music at quite a young age. At seven years old, his family moved to Florida and Dakota started playing guitar. Dakota grew in his musical abilities playing in his church band, then high school band, then a few blues band projects. He graduated from Seminole High School in 2013, and shortly after joined the United States Air Force, serving for two years in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The Air Force brought Dakota many challenges and hard times, along with good times and great friends, ultimately leading to him discovering his true passion--music. When he left the service in 2015, Dakota launched his music career and has been going ever since.


As a musician Dakota is well versed in both style and instrumentation. As an instrumentalist and a vocalist, he's played styles such as rock, blues, jazz, gospel, country, funk, soul, bluegrass, and R&B. You can hear elements of these musical styles in Dakota's original music. He plays electric and acoustic guitar, bass guitar, drums, piano, organ, and pedal steel guitar (one of his favorites).


Dakota strongly believes in entrepreneurship and independence. With the fleeting popularity of record labels and large commercial studios, and the amazing potential reach provided by social media, there's never been a better time to be an independent artist. When the name Dakota Hurley gets slapped on the front of his work, it's rightful. From promotion, to booking, to writing/composing/arranging, to recording/mixing the music, Dakota does it all.


Dakota is an audio engineer, skilled in both studio and live sound environments. Trained at F.I.R.S.T. Institute in Orlando, FL, he's had the opportunity to work with many other artists and hone his craft--although the main drive to go to school came from his desire to be independent and not need to rely on commercial studios to produce original music.